


Thrown Away

by Clocketpatch



Series: Old Rags [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-29
Updated: 2007-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack isn't the first companion to be left in an awkward situation. Peri is stuck on an alien world trying (and failing) to get on with her life after being left for dead by the Doctor. Meanwhile, Jack is running for his life as the past, present, Torchwood, and a squad of angry androids follow in fast pursuit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Captain and the Queen

**Author's Note:**

> If you've found this buried in the archives, fair warning before you start reading:
> 
> 1\. I wrote this awhile back when I was newer to fic and less skilled at writing. I don't think it's bad, for what it is, but... it's different.
> 
> 2\. while the story itself is finished, the series it is a part of is not. This was all based on a weird cheese dream and would have eventually had Jamie McCrimmon and the Fifth Doctor in it... somehow. It never got to that part.

  
The land was ice. Krontep rolled in an elliptical orbit around its sun, and during the hundred year winter everything froze except for a few cold-resistant mosses. Those pale grey and blue survivors clung to ink black rocks that rose in jutting spires at random intervals from the snow.  
  
An army camped around those forlorn monoliths. A relatively small one; just a bit over two hundred; soldiers and their warrior wives, all of them wrapped in furs and armed with swords, axes, and spears. They sat with their backs against the sleeping bulk of the great wooly mammals they call ugrfas. In form the animals slightly resembled the extinct mammoths of earth except for their lesser size, extra tusks, and lack of trunks. The army used them as mounts and beasts of burden. The few that were not asleep had ventured out into the snow to forage moss from the rocks.   
  
The mood was good. Men and women laughed, and drank, and gambled, enjoying the break from their long trek. More than one pair of man and wife took advantage of their bond, pressing lips and other parts together in the damp-smelling shaggy underfur of the dozing ugrfas.   
  
It seemed a primitive assembly, but incongruous with that were the generators placed around the outskirts of the camp. Shooting out from the small metal boxes was a green web of flickering energy which covered and protected the men and women from the elements.  
  
In the middle of the gathering, lounging on the back of his sleeping ugrfa with ale running down his untrimmed beard and a lusty song pouring out of his lungs, was the army's leader: King Ycranos. Piss drunk and proud of it.  
He finished his ballad and started another.  
  
“To live is to fight, and to fight is to live, so I'll fight 'til I die and I'll fight while I live.” He took another swig of his drink. “Death or glory men!”  
  
A score of men and women met his toast with a roar of goodwill and gulped back on their own mugs of ale. In the chaos and celebration the king's wife slipped away from the group to the very edge of the camp, where the green net hit the ground. She looked up through it to the stars studding the sky so, so far away.  
  
Her name was Peri.  
  
She was a young woman, just past twenty, with an open face and a bob of dark brown hair. Though she wore the same animal skins as the rest of the group, she plainly wasn't the same as them. There was a delicateness and a beauty to her that they lacked. There was also a sorrow.  
  
“Why'd you have to do it?” she asked the stars. She had an American accent, but it sounded garbled, the way accents became when their owners spent a long time living abroad.  
She raised a hand to wipe away the beginnings of moisture from her cheeks, and then quickly burrowed back into her furry sleeve. Her breath stood in a faintly outlined cloud in front of her. Even within the force field it was cold,   
especially this far from the centre. The mocking stars shone clearly overhead, visible through the thin tracings of the green web. How had it come to this?  
  
She'd been traveling, and on her way to Morocco when her bastard step-father decided to do “what was best for her” and strand her on his stupid boat. If he hadn't been such an ass she'd be back on Earth, graduating university with a degree in botany. She'd be getting a nice quiet job in a greenhouse somewhere instead of being trapped on this barren rock.  
  
Instead she had tried to swim back to land, nearly drowned, been rescued by the Doctor's companion, met the Doctor, and been swept off on a whirl-wind exciting adventure of a lifetime. Then the Doctor had regenerated and it had all gone to shit. A few years of traveling with his new sarcastic, bossy, egotistical persona. A few _years_ of putting up with that revolting coat and wanting to go home but being half afraid to ask because maybe he wouldn't, or maybe he would.  
  
Then he went and betrayed her to a bunch of crazy slugs who wanted her body, and right up until the end she had herself convinced that it was some kind of double bluff on his part. He had died to save her life before, granted that had been a different him, he wouldn't just let her get killed, by slugs.  
  
But he did. Or didn't. It was all kind of jumbled in her mind. They had done something to her. She remembered being possessed, and then not being possessed, and then waking up strapped to a table with her head shaved and Yrcanos shouting some crazy prayer over her.  
  
And the Doctor never came back.  
  
So she had taken the only option and married Yrcanos, who seemed to have nothing else on his mind, and so became a queen.  
  
She laughed at that.  
  
What would her step-father think of her? His delicate little niece, a warrior queen on a planet light years from the Milky   
Way and god knew how many centuries in the future, or   
past?  
  
She took another glance at the stars, and then at the frozen wastes outside the force field.  
  
She would have rather worked in a greenhouse.  
  
@@@  
  
He didn't remember being dead. On that note, he didn't remember being killed either. One minute he was backing down a hall away from a dalek. His gun drawn and adrenaline pumping through his veins. Ready to do something stupid. Ready to die. Ready to live. The next moment he was sucking in air like a drowning man pulled from the deeps, and he didn't want to know what ocean he had been swimming in. His mind had an itchy blank space lodged into it, the same shape but smaller than the place where two years of his memory had been wiped. He stumbled to his feet and looked around feeling like a stranger in his own body.  
  
The daleks were gone.   
  
Nothing left but dust. He let it run through his fingers and wondered. Then he heard the sound of the TARDIS engines and he ran, up a flight of disused service stairs and through a maintenance corridor into a room of broken wires and machinery where the floor was ankle-deep in fine white dust. The ship disappeared as he arrived. He only caught a glimpse of blue and a rush of wind. Then it was gone.  
  
So he sat down and waited.  
  
As far as he could figure the delta-wave had worked. Somehow the Doctor had managed against sense, reason, and probability to make the modifications in time. The sonic field from the wave must've been what had knocked him out and wiped his memories. An unfortunate side-effect, but what were thirty seconds of memories compared to life?  
  
He thought that the Doctor would come back for him. That he had just nipped off to pick up Rose, ad then they would go off again, the three of them, into time and space.  
  
He didn't come back.  
  
Jack started rationalizing. The Doctor didn't know he was alive. Couldn't know.  
  
 _He could have checked._  
He's seen enough death already. What would seeing the dead body of a friend do to him? That's why he sent Rose away.  
  
 _He left in the TARDIS, he sent the TARDIS back with her. He already has her. He didn't leave to fetch her. He left because he could._  
  
 _You weren't that close._  
Then other, more insidious thoughts started popping up.  
  
 _This is the 51st century. He doesn't case if I'm dead or alive. It doesn't mater now that I'm stranded where I belong._  
  
 _He never wanted me anyway. He just saved me from my ship because of his morals, he kept me because he had nowhere else to put me, and now he's got rid of me._  
  
 _He kept me for Rose._  
  
Jack stood up and left the control room. He spent the next week dragging bodies to the bottom floor of the station and arranging them in rows. He ate out of the the Big Brother House kitchens.  
  
It took a week for Earth to organize itself to send a rocket to the Gaming Station. The would-be rescuers found only one living person on board.  
  
“How did you survive?”  
  
Jack flashed the team leader a disarming smile. He was rather handsome for an android. The way his burnished steel skull peeked through his synthetic skin just below the eye socket was deliciously kinky.  
  
“Daleks are easy,” Jack said. He reached out a hand to stroke that gorgeous face. The team leader jerked away.  
  
“What happened on board this station?”  
  
Jack's hand returned to his side. He concealed his disappointment.  
  
“Delta-wave, blasted the entire fleet.”  
  
“Who built this delta-wave?”   
  
Jack put on his cockiest smile.  
  
“I did.”  
  
TBC


	2. Many Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack swears in this one, and the next one, you have been warned.

The force field traveled with them when they moved. The generator blocks were lashed to the backs of a specially trained team of Ugrfas who guarded the flanks of the army as they marched. King Yrcanos rode at the front of the army, hard on the heels of the leading generator carrier. Peri sat behind him on a fur saddle specially arranged for her. She clung to her husband's fur and leather covered back and tried to imagine she was at home hugging her room mate's mangy sheepdog Eric. Anywhere but here.

Today they would be going into battle.

Because of this fact Yrcanos was ridiculously happy. He didn't have a hang-over from the previous night's party, none of the Kronteps did. Peri, who had eventually been forced to drink something lest she seem rude, had a splitting head ache, even though she had held most of the alcohol in her mouth and spit it out when no one was looking.

“Today,” Yrcanos shouted making Peri's head hurt more. Her husband's voice had two levels: loud and louder. “Today we ride to battle. The most glorious thing in existence. To fight with the blood of your enemy flecking your furs and your sword, with your blood and sweat mixing with a foe's entrails on the ground to steam in the snow before being picked upon by the carrion birds of war!”

“I think I'm going to be sick,” Peri whispered.

“Today we will ride together against my foe Silicas, and you will prove yourself my warrior queen! There will be be red and a frenzy and the gods will smile at our play. If we are lucky we might die in battle and be lifted to Valhalla, if we are not we will ride home to celebrate our victory. Does not you body thrum with anticipation for the heat of battle my warm beauty?”

“Thrumming away.”

She buried her head in the back of her husband's cloak. The thick fur smelled abominable, but so did everything else, even her probably, but it was comfortable and it blocked out some of her husband's ravings. She didn't want to ride into battle and fight for death or glory, but it was no use telling Yrcanos how frightened she was. Peri had learned very early that there was a big difference between real reality and Yrcano's reality, and the big bear of a man was very good at editing events to fit his view on things.

When Peri next peeked up her head, Silicas' army was within view, or rather, its force field was. The web protecting the enemy army was brilliant amber in colour. In another few moments the army proper was in sight and the two force fields were nearly touching. Peri could hear crackling as long arching sparks shot from one field to the other.

“Rearrange!” Yrcanos shouted in his louder volume. Peri covered her ears to prevent permanent damage.

On the other side Silicas issued a similar command. The generator Ugrfas shifted their formation. Great pulses of electricity zapped overhead as the two force fields brushed, touched, and finally merged into a great buzzing web of amber and green.  
Yrcanos and Silicas rode to meet each other. Peri clung tight to her husband's back, and because of this she was nearly pulled off when he suddenly leaped from his mount. Silicas was already on the ground and the two giant men embraced in a hug worthy of the bears they resembled. Peri, misinterpreting the action as one of aggression, jumped off the Ugrfa and ran to her husband's aid. She didn't love him as much as he loved her, but he was her only life-line on this alien world.

“Get off him!” she shrieked, kicking at Silicas' bulk.

The two men separated. They were laughing.

“See what a feisty queen I have old mate?” shouted Yrcanos .

“Feisty as the day and as beautiful as the dawn,” Silicas shouted in reply. He made to grab Peri into a crunching hug but she backed away in time.

“Aren't you enemies?” Peri asked.

Silicas smiled.

“Ah, mortally.”

He gave her a huge wink.

Peri gave a sigh of relief. Maybe this battle thing wouldn't be as bad as she thought. Her hopes were dashed a moment later.

“You call yourself King of this planet Yrcanos?” shouted Silicas in a good natured voice, “Lord of the Vingten, Conqueror of the Tonkonp Empire?”

Yrcanos grinned.

“I do.”

“I contest your claims, and in the names of Death and Glory and all the gods of Verduna I challenge you!”

Both men drew their swords from the long leather sheaves they carried at their waists.

“An oath in blood,” Silicas shouted, “that battle will not end until you concede and this field is painted red with your gore.”

“An oath,”shouted Yrcanos.

They slashed their hands with their blades and then mashed the wounds together. Peri felt faint. Then both men turned and walked back to their mounts. Peri followed her husband. He lifted her up on to the ugrfa's high back and then mounted in front of her. He handed her a mighty war axe from the animal's saddle bag.

Peri shook her head, feeling miserable.

“I can't lift that.”

“A knife then!” her husband exclaimed, offering her a jewel encrusted dirk, “a stinging barb for my lovely bee to show her honour and draw blood.”

Peri grudgingly accepted the weapon. The cold metal felt like it was burning her palm.

“For Honour! For Death! And for Glory!” Yrcanos shouted. Their ugrfa lunged forward, as did the mass of men behind them, and the enemy army in front of them. A hundred jubilant war cries rent the air as the battle began.

Peri shut her eyes and held on tight.

@@@

If Jack had been expecting a hero's welcome when he came back to Earth he was sadly mistaken. The rocket's hatch necessitated an undignified exit from the craft, butt first and turned around. When Jack got himself straightened out he found no crowd of cheering well wishers, not that he had been expecting it, but there wasn't any welcome party at all. The only people were the members of the rescue team — if you counted androids as people, which Jack did. They all stood in a vast, and empty, hanger. The steel girders of the roof were far enough from the cement floor that someone could probably pilot a small aircraft in the open space. Jack craned his neck back further. Maybe a medium aircraft as well. At the same time.

And it was cold, not frigidly, but enough to raise some goose pimples and make Jack mentally swear. The heating system in the Gaming Station had been damaged during the fight, and the rescue rocket had been non too warm either. He had been looking forward o a bit of heat.

“This way please.” The team leader put his hand on Jack's shoulder and gently directed him towards a shed built near the far end of the hanger. The android's fingernails were glistening deadly silver. Gorgeous. They sent a tingle surging through Jack's body. He could almost feel himself warming up. His libido certainly was.

“Hey,” said Jack, reaching smoothly over to caress that sexy hunk of man and metal. They all came over to him in the end. No one could resist the steaming good looks and intelligent wit of Captain Jack Harkness.

The android's hand tightened painfully, crumpling Jack to his knees. He looked up at the team leader with a wane expression on his face.

“If you want to play rough that's fine, but don't you think we should establish safe words first?”

The grip increased. Five metallic fingernails pressed vest and shirt against skin and threatened to puncture both. All Jack could do in response was let out a painful hiss of air.

“This way.” The team leader said, and released Jack.

Jack took in a shaky breath and rose to his feet, trying to regain his composure. So the team leader wasn't the flirting type. He rubbed his sore shoulder and collarbone.

“Lead on,” he muttered.

It took a few minutes to reach the shed, and all of that distance was marched in icy silence, just Jack and the team leader. The rest of the rescue party had stayed with the rocket to perform maintenance.

The shed was made completely out of corrugated metal. It looked like the sort of place spiders went to hide and weave webs, dark and forbidden. Jack got a funny feeling off of it which intensified when he realized there was no door. He considered making a smart-ass remark about it, but the throbbing in his shoulder held his tongue in check. Instead he sighed nonchalantly and waited for come what may.

He didn't wait very long.

The floor started to vibrate.

“Holy shit!”

He took a step back to steady himself. The team leader stood calm and composed like the machine it was. Its shiny, acrylic-based, plastic eyes were fixed on the shed. Jack followed the mechanical gaze. The front wall of the shed dropped. It didn't fall forward. It dropped, into the floor, like a sliding panel. Jack blinked at what it revealed.

The insides walls of the shed were cheap rutted tin, but its floor had a plush covering of beige carpet. A standard, dull as dry toast office was arranged on top of it; a faux-wood desk with an executive roller behind it and two molded plastic client chairs in front, a filling cabinet — there was even a potted palm tree in the corner. A man sat in the executive chair facing the wall. He turned as the team leader persuaded Jack into the shed.

He had a distinct face with sharp cheekbones and a large nose. His hair was dark and close cropped. He reminded Jack of the Doctor, but there was no comparing the two men. Instead of sad blue eyes the man in the chair had a pair of nearly black pits. He was dressed in a tight fitting grey business suit with a tie to match hi hair. Jack could tell at a glance he was the sort of man who liked strategies, calculations, politics, and messes cleanly swept under the table or out the door.

“You may sit.”

Jack nodded and swung himself into one of the client chairs. The team leader remained standing. Jacked leaned over the desk and offered his hand to the stranger.

“Captain Jack Harkness, and you are - ?”

 

The man took Jack's hand and shook it with measured strokes.

“I am the Emergency Media-Control Minister. You may call me Mr. Wicks.”

“Ah, you mean you're the guy who's going to tell me what I'm not allowed to tell the public about the daleks.”

“Precisely.”

“Censorship and all that.” Jack paused to stretch. “I never liked it much myself. Especially during my war days.”

“You were a soldier Mr. Harkness.”

“Once, long time ago, different time, different world almost.”

The Minister nodded like he was trying to be understanding, but the deception wasn't working.

“Yes, I understand about the passage of time,” he said. “The world of our youth was certainly very different from the world of the now.”

“Too true,” said Jack.

He leaned back in his chair, kicking his legs onto Mr. Wicks desk. It was a way to assert some of his own authority and show that he wasn't the type to be bullied by bureaucracy. The Minister frowned at his action, but said nothing. The team leader took a step forwards, but Mr. Wicks waved the android back to his corner. Jack relaxed.

“So your soldiering days, I suppose that's how you were able to fight the daleks.”

“A bit of experience helps. Everyone else on that station was as useless as a dead piece of shit. All they'd ever done in their lives was sit on their asses and watch TV. Even the so-called guards were useless. Never seen a real fight in their lives.”

“You saw quite a bit of action during your time in the service then Captain Harkness?”

Jack noted the change from Mr. To Captain. Mr. Wicks was trying to butter him up for something, but he wasn't buying before he knew what it was.

“Some. I traveled with an elite group for a time.”

“You had some rather intelligent tricks while you were up there. From what the rescue party radioed me on your trip back home, I hear that you single-handedly rigged up a delta-wave to wipe out the entire fleet. An amazing feat.”

“like I said. I traveled with an elite group for a time.”

Mr. Wicks nodded again, and it was as measured and unnatural as before.

“How did you get on board the Gaming Station?” he asked.

“I was brought up for the games. You know, everyone's a potential contestant.”

“Do you think I am?” asked Mr. Wicks. The Minister's tone and body language had changed. He wasn't chit-chatting anymore. “And would you kindly remove your legs from my work area,” he said coldly.

Jack took a long moment to decide whether he should press his luck or not. The team leader in the corner clicked its fingernails together. Jack returned his legs to the floor. Mr. Wicks' right hand disappeared under the desk. A moment later a grinding noise, of metal on metal filled the room. Jack turned his head in time to see the fourth wall slide back into place. He looked back to Mr. Wicks.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The room began to shake. Jack felt his teeth start chattering as the vibrations wracking the room ran through him. Mr. Wicks smiled.

“We're going down.”

TBC


	3. Into Melee

“What the fuck is going on?”

The room began to shake. Jack felt his teeth start chattering as the vibrations wracking the room ran through him. Mr. Wicks smiled.

“We're going down.”

The shaking increased. Jack felt like his joints were sliding out of themselves. He grabbed the desk as a sudden jerk shifted his stomach several inches into his throat. The palm tree in the corner tipped over spilling rich loam across the light-coloured carpet. Through it all Mr. Wicks sat with his hand gently folded in his lap and a smile playing on his lips.

“There's nothing to worry about,” he said, “All perfectly normal. It will stop in a moment.”

On cue the room stilled. Jack stopped clinging to the desk and narrowed his eyes at Mr. Wicks.

“What the hell was that?”

“Transport. Like I said, we went down.”

Jack heard the fourth wall drop behind him. He got up to take a look. He wasn't surprised to see that the hanger was gone.

“Elevator?”

“Very good,” said Mr. Wicks', also rising from his chair. The minister paused, noticing the tipped over plant in the corner.

“Clean that up,” he said to the team leader. The android complied.

That mess taken care of, Mr. Wicks turned his attentions back to Jack.

“If you would follow me,” he said, and walked out of the shed.

Jack followed, using an easy pace to catch up with Mr. Wicks and walk abreast with him rather than following. The hanger had been replaced with a round tunnel made of white concrete. The floor was slightly concave as it dipped in with the circle. Like the hanger it was cold.

“What's this all about?” asked Jack.

“You'll find out,” said Mr. Wicks.

They passed several metal doors recessed into the curved walls of the tunnel, but they didn't stop.

“Come on,” said Jack, “I saved the world, and all I want is a ham and banana sandwich, a hyper vodka, and a warm shower.”

“You certainly need one.”

Not my fault the daleks blasted the station's plumbing circuits.

Mr. Wicks stopped in front of one of the doors.

“You going to tell me what's going on now? Or do I have to wait a bit longer?”

Mr. Wicks took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. It swung inwards with a shrill creak. Mr. Wicks stepped through and Jack followed. He was immediately seized on both sides by two androids.

“Take him to the chair,” said Mr. Wicks.

The pair of robots dragged Jack to a straight-backed plastic chair in the middle of the room. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and a bright light found its way in front of his face.

“You going to tell me what the fuck this is now?” Jack asked, struggling against his bonds. One of the androids rested its hand on his bruised shoulder. He stopped moving, a tingle whispering of soon-to-come pain moving down his spine to settle in his gut.

“Certainly Captain Jack Harkness,” said Mr. Wicks. He said captain with a sarcastic twist. One of the androids brought him a chair. He placed it backwards in front of Jack and sat down straddling it with his arms resting on the back. “You were the only survivor found on board the Gaming Station.”

“I believe we've already been over this.”

“Reports from the rescue team indicate that you were not lying about the presence of the delta-wave.”

“Why would I do a thing like that?”

“But it was never finished, or put into action.”

Jack blinked, taking in this piece of information. What the fuck? If the delta-wave hadn't taken out the daleks then what the hell had the Doctor done? Granted the dust had been weird. That wasn’t a normal delta-wave effect.

“Tell me Captain Jack Harkness,” Mr. Wick's leaned in until Jack could feel his breath on his cheek, and smell it. The minister had eaten something spicy earlier that day. “How exactly did you save the world?”

@@@

Peri hugged Eric. In return the lovable lump of a sheepdog slobbered all over her. She didn't mind since he was so warm, and she was freezing for some reason. The dog’s friendly brown eyes glowed with adoration, and his tail thumped against the floor with a steady rhythm. His owner, her best friend Roxie was watching a movie in the other room. A horror flick by the sound of the screams. Peri winced. She really ought to turn the volume down. The neighbours would complain.

Peri opened her eyes. The battle was still going on. She continued to cling to her husband’s back as he leaned back and forth to complete sword thrusts. They were both soaked with gore. Through it all he was singing, loud and lusty like they were still at the pre-battle celebration and not in the midst of the fight:

“To live is to fight, and to fight is to live, so I'll fight 'til I die and I'll fight while I live, and wish for death and Valhalla!”

He finished a stroke with his sword on the last stroke and one of Silicas’s men lost their head. Peri felt her stomach heave, but she had nothing left to throw up. She had emptied herself completely during the first five minutes of battle.

“Hello little queen.”

Peri looked, quivering, to the source of the voice. It was a woman, marked as one of Silicas’s by the yellow smudge of paint on her forehead. She had managed to get onto the back of the ugrfa behind Peri.

“You’d make a prize for the bragging.”

Peri noticed the axe that the woman held aloof, big, heavy, and deadly like the one she had refused. She couldn’t look to her husband for help. Yrcanos was too busy ranting, singing, and slashing to pay any heed to the drama happening literally right behind his back.

“Please don’t,” Peri whimpered.

The woman crawled closer a joyous, crazed smile plastered across her face.

“Will you face your death with honour little queen?”

Peri remembered the knife. She held it up like a magic spell, gripping the ugrfa’s back with her thighs lest she fall into the chaos below. The woman paid her antic’s no heed, crawling forward across the furry plane on three limbs, the third hoisting the axe high.

Not knowing what to do Peri stabbed out blindly. She caught the woman on her axe arm. The weapon fell, gashing Peri as it did. The women fell with it, screaming curses all the way. Peri’s heart beat as if it would explode. She closed her eyes. Rivers of damp ran down her cheeks. She clutched at her husband’s back again. In a moment she was hugging Eric, and drowning her sorrows in his soft doggy scent.

TBC


	4. Escaping the Aftermath

Snow churned pink and dark rocks stained darker, all of the long suffering moss scuffed away. At least a dozen ugrfas lay on their sides heaving for breath, slashed open and spewing themselves, steaming, to further desecrate the white. Men and women tended the beasts that could be saved and mercifully despatched the ones that would never rise again. The same triage was used on the battle’s human wreckage.

The fighting had ended not because one side won, but because both sides got tired and decided it was time for a drink. Some weren’t bothering with clean-up tasks at all. Yrcanos and Silicas (who had decided not to fulfil their deadly oaths) leaned against their swords, gulping back ale, and discussing their valiant acts of war. As time passed more individuals from both sides came to join them in a lusty drinking round. No effort was made to bury the dead. They would stay frozen until summer when their flesh would be a welcome meal to meat-eaters waking up from their century long hibernation.

Peri stayed apart from the group. She had found that she did have more in her stomach to be sick with.

Lonely, nauseous, and traumatised, and feeling abandoned by her husband, and in the back of her mind, always chewing at the back of her mind, the Doctor, Peri slumped in the snow. She jumped when a warm weight pressed onto her shoulder. She looked up and found her husband there. His jovial face wasn’t smiling.

“Peri?” he asked in a soft shout — at least he was trying.

She pushed his arm away. She didn’t care how hard he was trying. It didn’t change anything.

“Were you injured in the great fight?”

“No.” A track of red ran down her arm where the woman had glanced her with the knife, she felt bruised all over, and her leg had obtained a gash somewhere along the way. Yrcanos would fawn over her if she let him. At the moment she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. She wanted to cuddle a fluffy mutt named Eric, to run across a lawn of freshly mowed grass; to go home.

If Yrcanos understood that then he wasn’t letting. Always open with his emotions, the king’s puzzlement was stamped on his face like a brand.

“Peri of the Brown who’s beauty commands the sky and turns back the wind, why are you crying?”

“Why do you think?” she sniffed. Her nose was dribbling almost as much as her eyes and fur sleeves didn’t make good tissues.

He didn’t answer. Neither did he move. She could feel his presence behind him like an itch. A warm bulk she wanted to hug and stab at the same time. He was unhappy.

“Why don’t you go sing some more songs with your drinking buddies, and talk about how many people died today.”

She could feel him smiling behind her back, all sarcasm lost on his straight-forward mode of thought. Little twists of tone like that just bewildered him, when he picked them up at all.

“Yes, it was a good battle,” he shouted, then paused, almost like he was thinking, “Your first war, but you are unhappy and so must I be. How can I smile when my sun goes away? Tell me soft snowflake, why do you cry?”

She got up and angrily shook off the arm that he had again draped across her back.

“Because a lot of people died today!”

He looked back at her. He was trying so hard to understand but he didn’t have a clue. None of them did. War was a game and death was a lark. At worst it would lead to reincarnation, and at its glorious best it was the gateway to Valhalla, the warrior’s heaven. Peri knew that she was being the let-down at a carefully planned party. She also knew that she was experiencing culture shook. None of that changed the smell of hacked visceral organs assaulting her sanity.

And big strong Yrcanos, King of Kropten, Lord of the Vingten, Conqueror of the Tonkonp Empire was staring at her like an oversized puppy who wanted love and didn’t understand why its owner was angry at the mess on the carpet.

“I want to go home,” said Peri between the sobs that had begun to rack her again.

Even though he didn’t understand, her husband knew exactly what to do. An instant later Peri found herself swept up in his arms and carried towards the party. A skint-sized mug (roughly equivalent to two and a half earth pints) filled with warm ale appeared from nowhere. Yrcanos held the cup for her as she took big gasping sips. As soon as she had floated into oblivion Yrcanos made an announcement that his valiant queen had fainted from an injury incurred by a heroic act of battle. Cheers rang out for her bravery. A few minutes later Yrcanos left with his wife on one of the generator beasts. He allowed his men to stay behind and enjoy the party.

@@@

Captain Jack Harkness was well acquainted with pain. Part of his training as a Time Agent had involved various torture methods. He remembered very plainly now the thin, inauspicious, black volume, its crisp white pages, and scientific diagrams. He remembered a certain session with a force-grown clone where he had left the room, much to his later mockery by his fellow trainees. He remembered endless lectures on theory and practicality. And he wished that the Time Agency could have chosen to erase that year from his mind when they were thumbing around in there.

He didn’t show any of this on his face. Put on a brave exterior was the third rule of the Time Agency, following; don’t mess with it, and don’t go without permission.

Mr. Wicks had got up and started pacing a few minutes ago. He went round and round Jack’s chair. Jack refused to follow him with his eyes knowing that was what the minister wanted; a game of follow the leader to establish his control. And silence. To drive Jack out of his mind and make him answer his questions.

Wasn’t going to happen.

Mr. Wick’s hard polished shoes clicked on the concrete floor with every step. Jack would have punch him if he hadn't been handcuffed with two androids keeping his arms pinned to his sides. Mr. Wick’s checked his watch. The message was clear:

I can do this all day.

Jack relaxed as much as his rock-hard prisoner chair would allow. His calm smile sent his reply to the message. He had training, and he knew the minister’s type. It wouldn’t take long, five, four, three, two…

“Earth has tried you as a criminal.”

Jack’s smile widened.

“Thank you, I always thought of myself as one. Do I get a prize?”

“Quiet.”

The android on Jack’s right side squeezed, and his smile tensed into a line. Mr. Wick’s stopped pacing in front of Jack. His position was deliberately within the interrogation light’s glare so that all Jack could see of him was a silhouette.

“You think we should treat you as a hero?”

“It was an idea.”

“This world doesn’t need a hero. It’s already been saved.”

“Matter of opinion.”

“Earth wants a scapegoat Jack,” said the black form in front of the light, “A lot of people died and the masses are angry. They call out for blood. The blood of the terrorists who murdered their children. Members of the QH9 group seeking to shut down the games. Unfortunately, when their plans went awry all of the terrorists killed themselves. There was only one survivor; a rouge named Jack Harkness who was too cowardly to take his pill. ”

Jack bit down his anger as he realized what was going on.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Have you ever read Orwell? Fasinating read from the mid-twentith century. I am the Minister of Truth. What I say must be.”

“You can’t control people that much. They aren’t stupid. Half a million daleks swarmed over this planet. I think someone’s going to figure out that wasn’t caused by a group of terrorists. Daleks don’t listen to humans. They don’t make deals.”

Jack was yelling by the end of his speech, but Mr. Wicks didn’t seem to notice. A gleam in the minister’s eyes told Jack that he was missing something important. Mr. Wicks moved forward, materializing from the glare of the light.

“Who said anything about Daleks?”

That was when Mr. Wicks began circling again, like a predator closing for the kill, or a vulture. His large nose did look like a beak.

TBC


	5. Contemplation

  
Another thing Jack had learned about in his Time Agency training were confinement methods. Later, during his days as a con-man and his travels with the Doctor, he gained an embarrassing amount of first hand experience on the subject. He knew just about every jail-type and model of restraint that had been or would be invented from the mundane to prism-based hydro-loops (very useful for containing wave-based organisms such as Hooloovoos and parasitic werewolves).  
  
The cell he currently sat in definitely fell to the mundane side of the scale. Dull grey concrete for the ceiling, floor, and sides, a metal door with a barred air slip, and a little ledge, also concrete, that protruded out of the wall to serve as a seat. Since Jack felt perverse he was resting on the floor instead. The only half interesting features in the room were a caged light bulb in the middle of the ceiling, and the abandoned spider-web which hung off it.  
  
At least it was dry, unlike that half-submerged cell on Women Wept. It was nearly as cold though. He shivered and drew his arms into the body of his tee-shirt. That was another time the Doctor had abandoned him. The pair of them went for a stroll along the beach while he was freezing his butt off in chains. Granted they had no way of knowing that flirting was illegal at the ice café when they sent him there to get some tea.  
  
 _He never wanted you._   
  
Jack grimaced. He wasn’t one for self-pity. He was a do-it-himself man. He’d been in bad places before, and he probably would be again, but he always got out. He didn’t need anyone else. He just needed to analyze the situation and make the best of it.  
  
Flicks of his conversation with Mr. Wicks came back to him. He hadn’t been harmed during the interrogation. Aside from occasional squeezes from the Minister’s android buddies, the only suffering Jack had endured in that room was boredom and Mr. Wicks maniacal ranting.  
  
Sill, he was chilled at where those rants might lead. He hadn’t been given any food yet and he was staring to get thirsty. Mr. Wicks did have a point about human stupidity. Jack had preyed off it for years after going AWOL from the Agency. Nothing was more gullible than a human, except perhaps a human that had spent its life slouched on a couch being brainwashed by bad television.  
  
The dalek attack would have shaken up the world order, and if Jack appeared as a hero that might end the oppression for good. He would be, to the eyes of the public, an ordinary person, a contestant of the games, who had fought and saved the world. He would give them faith in themselves; something that Earth’s government had spent a very long time trying to suppress. As criminal he would just feed into their dull, stupid blood-lust. He would become a bit of controlling entertainment until the Gaming Station was brought back on line. He was reminded of the Roman’s bread and circuses.  
  
Well, he had fought his way out of the Coliseum once, he thought remembering one of his misadventures with the Doctor and Rose. He could fight his way out of this.   
  
He stood up and moved so that he was standing with his back against the door. He crouched so that hi head wouldn’t be visible through the air vent. Someone would be coming for him eventually. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn’t be getting him.  
  
@@@  
  
The journey to Yrcanos’ base of living took a day and a half. Peri spent the journey drifting in and out of dreams which varied between reality escapes (e.g. her room mate’s sheepdog), and screaming night terrors.   
  
She regained consciousness fully on a pile of furs, her martial bed, in the main bedroom of Yrcanos’ royal cottage. The small (better to keep heat in) stone room had become very familiar to her since she came to Kropten. She had taken a long time to recover from her possession after Yrcanos rescued her from Thoros-Beta, and then, just as her brain had decided to start working properly again, she’d been floored by a bad case of Thordon flu. The virus was normally only as annoying as the common cold, but Peri’s immune system had no defence against the virus. It took her three Kropten months to put the bug beside her. She wasn’t sure how long a Kropten month was in relation to an American one, but her hair had grown back by the end of it all.

Yrcanos waited until she was better before proposing. She didn’t want to exactly, but there was nothing else for it. Then, Kropten tradition was consummating marriage not with sex, but with battle. Peri didn’t want either.

She rolled off the pile of furs and staggered to the fireplace. There was always a basin of water on the mantle. She splashed her face with it a few times. The water was comfortably warm from the fire heat. A few drops landed on the mantles marble carvings; beasts and ugrfas of war devouring each other in battle.  
With nothing else to do, Peri wandered back to her bed and sat down. She wasn’t aware that the battle had occurred. Nightmares had plagued her throughout her recuperation, and she had taken some learning from her husband on the art of re-ordering reality to fit one’s own views. It was so easy to pass away the consummation fight as just another bad dream.

A little while later she wandered out of her room in search of food. The cottage was empty, and she assumed Yrcanos was out in the fields somewhere. It had shocked her when she first regained her senses, that Yrcanos, ruler of three planets, spent most of his days bent over the earth, coaxing minute seeds towards green life in a field protected by a web of force-field energy. Then he had explained to her how important it was to stay with the soil. Charging battle and gardening seemed to be all that mattered to the Kroptens. If only, if only…

Peri’s stomach rumbled, and she realised that she had been standing still for a few minutes. She shook head in an attempt to clear any funk out of it. Her mind had been playing tricks on her since her possession; the bad dreams, the moments she lost in her head.  
  
She found a chunk of meat in the salt chest, and some tubers on a pantry self. They were dull blue and tasted almost like parsnips, but a bit spicier. She wasn’t sure what the meat was but she dug into it greedily. During her travels with the Doctor she had been forced into a vegetarian diet, now she savoured every bite of the stuff she got. She did feel a little bad for the ugrfa who had died supplying it, but not bad enough to put her off her meal.  
  
After eating she went outside. The royal cottage sat in a cluster with a good hundred others. The only destination between it and them was a small seal above the door. Peri sat down under it and rejoiced in the fresh air. A bit chilly, but not unbearable. If she ignored her dreams and homesickness then everything was okay with the world. She could almost be happy.  
  
Then the sky exploded.  
  
TBC


	6. Out (Not quite)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's puloined outfit is a nod to the ridiculously horrid (it's funny how awful it is) suit worn by the bad guy in the Shada fragments.

  
Jack walked purposefully down a white concrete tunnel. He had learned long ago that people were less likely to stop you if you looked like you were going somewhere. In his head he frantically tried to figure out where that somewhere would be.  
  
Getting out of his cell hadn’t been an issue. Someone had foolishly decided to send a human guard instead of an android to fetch him for the next round of integration. Jack had turned on the charm and his compact laser deluxe and was out in no time. He took the guard’s clothes too. People were less likely to stop you if you blended in.   
  
His new get-up consisted of a nearly skin-tight suit with a triangular silver collar, flared legs and shoulder pads (what was it with people and flares + shoulder pads. Didn’t they realise that was a bad idea the first time round?). At least the trim cut complimented his figure. There had been a tinfoil cape and cap as well, but risks be damned he wasn't going to wear them.  
  
He paused, noticing a familiar logo seared into the wall. His eyes narrowed at the compact circles. Of course.  
  
Torchwood.  
  
Who else would build a giant underground complex with shoulder squeezing androids?  
  
Actually, he could think of a few megalomaniacs and several other “top-secret” organizations, but the cunningly disguised elevator was the giveaway. That had Torchwood scribbled all over it. And the way the organization had intergrated itself wih government functions in this century. He really should have realised sooner.  
  
And of course, Torchwood and the Time Agency in this century went together like two crossed fingers.  
  
Which meant there would be, should be, time ships around somewhere. He could pilot one. All he had to do was filch it and he could get away from this god-damned time period. Maybe he could find the Doctor again.  
  
If he wanted to.  
  
Now he strutted down the hall with real purpose. Find the hanger. Get a ship. Get out.  
  
Right. First things first.  
  
Find the hanger.  
  
All of the tunnels looked the same, and four hours later Jack felt like banging his head against the mockingly similar, smooth, slightly curved walls in frustration. At least a spot of pink from his forehead would break-up the monotony. It would also attract attention.  
  
He pressed his teeth together. Hard. And continued walking.  
  
Four hours later his eyes were playing tricks on him. The monochromatic colour scheme was making him see dots of colour where there were none. He was also getting a major headache compounded by his hunger, thirst, and the fact that he had lost control and head banged the wall several times an hour or so back.  
  
He continued walking.  
  
“Thank you,” he said, rolling his eyes briefly upwards when he noticed the first security camera.  
  
Its green light blinked at him as it swivelled to keep track of his passage down the tunnel. Security camera = something needing security = a break from evil tunnels of doom.  
Jack waved as he passed it, and the next one, and the next one.  
  
The cameras didn’t worry him so much. They were probably just for show, or monitored by a fat lazy worker who wouldn’t take any notice of a purposeful Jack wearing a guard uniform, or a computer, which also, probably, wouldn’t take any notice of a purposeful Jack wearing a guard uniform. He _was_ worried when he took a step forward and a thin red line of light glanced across his trousers. Moments later a jarringly loud klaxon was killing his ear drums.  
  
He ran.  
  
Androids popped out of — well, he wasn’t entirely sure where they popped out of. They strode after him with long purposeful strides, not rushing. They knew who would tire first.  
  
But they didn’t know Jack.  
  
This stretch of tunnel had only one door recessed into its side. Locked of course, but Jack’s CLD took care of that. No way of locking it behind him with the doorknob blown out though. In front of him was a long flight of stairs and another door. He opened it to see an office suspiciously similar to the elevator he had come it. He slammed the door shut. That way up would be disabled or booby-trapped.  
  
He rushed up the stairs two, three at a time, well aware that they were in all likely-hood booby-trapped as well, and even if not — the androids were coming.


	7. Out

The stairs were booby-trapped, and Jack had a bloody gash torn into his flares as a result. His quick, no, his trained, reflexes had saved him, thrusting his torso out of the path of evil whizzing bullet balls at the first hiss of the gas-release trigger.

And he was only half way up.

Thankfully the androids were having some trouble navigating the razor blade infested stairs behind him. Apparently the balls cut through metal as easy as flesh.

Jack thanked the short-sighted security systems designer and stumbled onward, to another door.

It tried to be imposing with riveted steel plates, but a quick zap with his CLD took out the simple key lock. Again he thanked the bloody stupid wonderful guy who installed the security in this place. The guy who thought his balls would stop the likes of Captain Jack Harkness.

Well, if there was one thing Jack could deal with, it was balls.

He stepped through the door into a hanger. Not the same one he had first come to Earth in. No, this one was bigger, much bigger. His hair ruffled. This place was big enough for its own air currents. The steel girdered walls were vague in the distance. Organic, vine-twining wire metal pillars spaced at random intervals kept the sky-like roof from collapsing.

And the place was littered with spaceships.

He stepped casually round, weighing his options. That one might do, but half its belly was ripped out in a mess of repairs. He rolled his eyes as he passed a brand shiny smacking new Jagrafa Sunglider. The people of his home era really were stupid. Everyone knew those things were trash.

Too big.

Too unwieldy.

He he no clue how to fly that. Was pretty sure it required a few extra body parts he didn’t possess.

The he saw her. A small ship set apart from the other. Just fantastic! He didn’t even notice when he said it out loud, or realise how out of character the exclamation was for him. How he had changed.

She was just so, so shiny.

Not new and crass shiny like the Sunglider, but perfect little, round and slick shiny. Like a baby seal just come back from its first swim. Like any baby animal — but with elegance.

“Baby you are good to me,” Jack said, and he moved forward to stroke the ship’s seal smooth belly.

Alarms went off.

And Jack’s head nearly fell off. His ears could only take so much punishment in a day, boring lectures, klaxons, and alarms, and…

Pain.

One of the androids had managed to get past the booby-traps apparently, and it had a gun. Funny that. None of the other androids had guns.

Jack raised his eyes from the dark stain sliding down the front of his shirt, glazing the silver collar with gore, to see not an android, but Mr.Wicks.

The minister tucked his gun into the heel of his hand and clapped.

“Good boy Jack, she is a beautiful ship isn’t she? We had a feeling you might escape, but I didn’t know your attempt would be so amusing, or that you had such good taste.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Jack grunted. He clutched his side with one hand, his CLD with the other, and turned back to the ship.

“Tut, tut, tut, swearing is used by the unintelligent to make themselves feel powerful and witty, you struck me as beyond all that.”

Jack declined a repy. He was losing too much blood, and he leaned heavily against he hull for support. The ship’s entry hatch was before him, and he struggled to work the CLD on it with hands that were rapidly going numb.

Fuck the stupid batteries.

“Having some trouble I see?”

Blood loss, hunger, nausea, and a few other nasty feelings made Jack swoon to the side, just as Mr. Wicks fired his gun a second time. The odds against it were many, the odds against it blowing off the lock even greater, but providence prevailed, and Jack pulled himself through.

Not before Mr. Wicks pulled off a third shot, this one hitting its intended target in the back. The kidney. As the hatch pulled shut, Mr. Wicks smiled at the slick patch of blood on the ship’s previously innocent hull. He would bleed to death quickly, and even if he did manage to launch the ship, it would be easy enough to retrieve it.

@@@

Inside the ship Jack vomited copiously and prayed that there were trained nanogenes waiting to heal him. She seemed like such a nice ship. He had no doubt she would make him better.

After emptying himself, he dragged his body into the pilot’s chair. A small tracking device blinked on the console. He CLDed it and it finished its blinking existence with a small explosion and a few purple sparks. Of course the batteries would oblige when it wasn’t his life hanging on the line.

Darkness threatened to take over. But he flicked the switches in the correct start-up procedure. Good ship. Easy to fly.

His thoughts were short and blunt.

Good.

It was only too late, when the ship was rising towards an automatically opening hatch in the hanger’s ceiling that he realized his mistake.

The ship was on a fixed pre-plotted course.

Short and blunt.

Fuck.

Was his last thought before he died.

TBC


	8. Boom!

  
  
The sky exploded.  
  
Peri staggered back as the weight of the light hit her. Fire, fire, everywhere. Not burning, but tingling. The hairs stood attention down the back of her neck and along her arms and legs. Her dark brown bob stood up too, and she had a brief thought that she must look like a mad scientist. Or like an idiot who suck their toe in an electric socket.  
Gradually the glaring white faded. Peri blinked a few times to clear the spots from her vision. That was…  
  
She looked up. The village’s force field was still in an uproar. Shoots of energy were zapping between strands of the web, the strands themselves were quivering, but things were calming down. A heavy buzz permeated the air. After a few moments it decreased to its normal white-noise volume.  
  
Something major must have happened for the force field to malfunction like that. An attack on one of the generators maybe — except the Krontep’s only attacked each other in the open at pre-arranged battles. They didn’t blast generators. An accident then.  
  
That thought got Peri moving.  
  
 _Someone might be hurt!_  
  
Not that she could do very much. But she could lend a hand, and perhaps help tending the wounded. She had read up on the local greenery during her long covalence, something to do, and knew that many species of the summer vegetation preserved in the settlement had medicinal properties. She wasn’t sure how those properties worked exactly, but she could help gather the herbs, maybe…  
  
It took her a quarter of an hour to reach the closest generator station. She could see someone on top of the structure, a distance of about three stories from the ground. They noticed Peri and waved down at her. She noticed a ladder built into the black rock the generator was set on top of and started to climb. The figure appeared at the top of the ladder started waving their arms no. Peri returned to the ground. A short climb later the figure joined her.  
  
She was a techie. One of the few Kropten’s who thought with more than a sword and a shovel. They maintained the scant but essential technology of the community. The techie had long tangled hair and wore the same half-cured skins as everyone else, but they accessorized with a small watch-like device and a metal monocle attached to an antennae that ended in a blinking red light.  
  
“What happened?” Peri asked, a bit out of breath from hurrying across the fields.  
  
“Nothing at this station,” replied the techie, “It’s fine, all the way through. No gliches. No rust- “  
  
The techie cut off in mid-sentence and tilted her head to the side. Her forehead wrinkled and she tilted her head in another direction, angling the antennae. She frowned.  
  
“Generators 3,4, and 6 reporting clear. That leaves 8-“  
Another head jerk.  
  
“Clear.”  
  
The techie’s attention turned back to Peri. She looked confused.  
  
“No glitches. No damage. All of the generators are fine.”  
  
“Then what caused… what happened?” asked Peri.  
  
“We don’t know.” The techie took a deep breath and let it out in an overblown huff. She glanced up at the now nearly-calm force field.  
  
“Strange business.” Her eyes returned to Peri. “Wait, aren’t you…”  
  
Peri closed her eyes in embarrassment as the Techie preformed a little curtsey.  
  
“I thought you were injured in the battle?” the Techie asked upon completing the motion.  
  
“Battle? I wasn’t in any battle?”  
  
“Weren’t you?” the Techie looked confused again, “I was told from the announcer…” She noticed Peri’s distress, “Ah it does not matter. Would you like a drink?”  
  
“Coffee would be nice,” said Peri. Her thoughts were moving through a haze. She didn’t remember that Kroptens didn’t drink coffee. That she would never drink the steaming brown liquid again. Never again inhale that glorious distinctive scent.  
  
“I don’t have that brew,” said the techie, “but my keg is full.”  
  
 _Why not?_  
  
Peri wandered off with the techie. After a year on the planet it was about time she made a friend.  
  
@@@  
  
Her name was Alleecas. They became very drunk together. For Peri it took a few sips, for the techie it took the majority of her full keg.  
  
The techie’s home was a small, dark hovel. She lived alone. Most techies did, only coming together with the larger community to do their job or exchange information with other techies, or passing space travellers. She talked to Peri about the weather and how she hoped to live until spring sunrise. She streamed an endless technobabble on generator repair. She graciously didn’t ask Peri about her past.  
  
That was nice. One of the many reasons Peri hadn’t made friends, besides her long illness, was the exotic fascination most of the Kropten’s seem to hold in her. It was impossible to make friends with people like that.   
  
As Peri listened to Alleecas’ long stream of quiet talk, occasionally interjecting with a foolish drunk question, she realised just how much she had missed conversation.  
  
Yrcanos did not know the art.  
  
She fell asleep on Alleecas bed. Perhaps that wasn’t normal, meet someone, get drunk and sleep with them in one night.   
  
But it wasn’t odd behaviour by the cultural standards, and sharing a bed was just good sense; warmer with two after the fire went out. She could have gone home, but really she had more passed out than chosen to go to sleep. The Kroptens mixed their booze very strong.  
  
She woke up with a familiar headache. She hated alcohol and swore never to drink it again, though she knew she’d probably be drunk again soon. They liked it strong, they liked it a lot, and they got very confused if you didn’t want to share it with them  
  
Alleeca was gone, probably to check the generators again.  
Peri stretched, and strode out into a soft morning. The force field flickered friendlily above her head. Whatever had disturbed it was now gone. She started towards home, no, not home. Yrcanos’ cottage. Headache aside she felt good. She had a friend. Maybe life wouldn’t be so bad. Then she heard the shouting.  
  
She jerked her head in the direction of the noise. The motion jarred her sensitive hangover so that her first impression of the scene was through blurred eyes:  
  
A mob of techies and men and women who had stayed to tend the fields during the battle (not by choice) mobbed around something half-trampling a crop of gazba tubers.  
  
The battle!  
  
The reduced number of people in the field brought her memories oozing back. She felt sick. She really wanted to sit down, cry, and have a good pity party, but she also wanted to know what the mob was about.  
  
She strode forward, slightly unsteady on her feet.  
  
It was a man. The crowd was gathered around a man. And his fashion sense was nearly as bad as… no, she wouldn’t think about him, not when she was close to tears as it was. The man was shouting, struggling. His clothes were ripped in several places and soaked with red. It didn’t make sense. The crowd wasn’t doing anything to him, only asking questions, well, shouting them, but they were perfectly reasonable questions. It took Peri a moment to realise the reason for the man’s strange behaviour - _he couldn’t understand them._   
  
It stood to reason of course. Now that she thought of it, Peri wasn’t even sure why she could understand the Kroptens (though between the TARDIS and the invasion of her mind by a slug who spoke the dialect she had a few good ideas).  
  
It took her a further moment to realise three other very important facts: 1. she could understand the man, 2. he was speaking English, 3. he had an American accent. Her mouth gaped at the last one. It was impossible. It was just.   
  
It was impossible.  
  
She walked up to the man, the crowd parting to admit her like Noah’s sea, and told him so. She also added the obvious:  
  
“You’re American!”  
  
The man smiled at her, showing teeth straighter and whiter than those possessed by any orthodontist’s child back on Earth.   
  
“Finally,” he said in a jaunty voice that couldn't belong to someone who had lost as much blood as appeared on his clothes, “somebody who understands what I’m saying.”  
  
Then realisation sunk in and he blinked in surprise.  
  
“So are you.”  
  
He shook his head, clearing it.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing here?”  
  
TBC


	9. The Captain and the Queen - take two

  
  
“What the fuck are you doing here?”  
  
Before Peri could answer her husband boomed into the group and started shouting rapid-fire questions at the man.  
  
“It’s no good,” Peri said, tugging on his cloak, “He can’t understand you.”  
  
“Yes, he speaks in a strange tongue!” The king grabbed a nearby techie. Peri recognized her as the one she had met by the generator the other day. “Fetch me a word-box!” he shouted.  
  
The techie nodded and scurried to his task.  
  
“You don’t need it,” said Peri, though the techie was already gone, “he’s speaking English.”  
  
“And what is this Inga-leesh?”  
  
“It’s my language, from Earth.”  
  
“AH!” Ycranos ejaculated, startling Peri. The strange man jumped too. “The native tongue spoken by Peri of the Brown. A man of her own Queendom! Why does he not bow before your grace!?”  
  
“Bow,” Peri whispered to the stranger.  
  
“What?” he snapped back. “Captain Jack Harkness does not- "  
  
“Just do it,” she hissed.  
  
Jack bent his head slightly, a cocky smile dribbling off his mouth and a smirk in his eyes. Before he could straighten up Yrcanos bundled him into a hug. Jack’s eyes flashed with something akin to terror. Yrcanos released him, and he bent over gasping and rubbing his bruised torso.  
  
“Welcome! Subject of Peri the Brown!” Yrcanos boomed, “Ever will you be welcome in our house!”  
  
“Pleasure,” Jack mumbled, not understanding the words, but recognising the tone.  
  
“You never told me of your people’s great hardiness!” Yrcanos’ shouted to Peri. “To live a day without coat or shield beyond the web of protection!”  
  
Peri shrugged.  
  
“Maybe we should bring him inside?” she asked, “He looks cold.”  
  
“Chilled by the winds of death!” Yrcanos argeed. He scooped up one terrified, thrashing Jake, and, followed by Peri, walked back to the royal cottage.  
  
@@@  
  
A short while later Jack and Peri were alone in the main room of the cottage. Yrcanos’ had left at Peri’s request to chop more wood for the fire. Jack and Peri crouched on the floor since the only chair was Yrcanos’ double throne, and that was forbidden for everyday use.  
  
“Sorry about Yrcanos,” Peri said, “he can get a bit carried away.”  
  
“I’d say I was the one carried away,” snarked Jack, “Ow!” he deliberately rubbed his bruised ribs.  
  
“Sorry,” said Peri, not really sure why she was apologising. “You should be dead,” she said.  
  
“Several times over probably. I live a charmed life.”  
  
“No, really. You should be dead. No one can survive outside of the force field during winter. It’s nearly seventy degrees below zero.”  
  
“Celsius, Fahrenheit, or otherwise?”  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
Jack stared at her.  
  
“I don’t know. I spend a lot of time around British people lately, and this is an alien planet. How should I know what unit of measurement you’re using?”  
  
“Not sure actually,” was her hont reply.  
  
“Thank you.” A long quite. “I do feel a bit cold.” Another long quiet. A huff of air from Jack. An accusing eye. “You still haven’t told me how a girl with an American accent ends up… wherever this is.”  
  
“Krontep,” said Peri.  
  
“Is that what it’s called? It’s the middle of nowhere in any case and I’m not seeing any spaceport.”  
  
“Yrcanos has ships. He rules this entire system.”  
  
“From _here_?” Jack asked, distain in his voice.  
  
“Yes from _here_ ,” snapped Peri, “We aren’t a bunch of primitives you know.” _though sometimes she wondered…_  
  
“Guess not,” said Jack.  
  
“Anyway,” said Peri, “you still haven’t said how you ended up here.”  
  
Jack tried to disarm her with a grin. It didn’t work. She was suspicious of those too white teeth. Too much time spent around Kropten mouths and straight teeth felt alien. Weird.   
She also didn’t like way his eyes kept wandering to her chest. She was glad that her curves were safely concealed by the bulk of her furs. Jack also realised this and changed his gazed so he was looking at her face.  
  
“I crashed,” he said simply. “Brushed your dome on the way down. Sorry about that.”  
  
Peri nodded.  
  
“I’m Captain Jack Harkness.”  
  
He held out a hand. Peri didn’t shake.  
  
“I’m Perpugilliam Brown. Peri for short. I’m the Queen of the Kronteps.”  
  
Jack’s mouth dropped, literally, Peri felt like pushing it back up, but Jack recovered before she could act on the urge  
  
“You mean…?” he sounded distraught.  
  
“That’ right, I’m Yrcanos’ wife.”  
  
Catch him ogling her chest again.


	10. Jig-Saw

  
  
Jack kept up a cool front after picking up his jaw. Neither he nor Peri spoke for several moments.   
  
She didn't belong here.  
  
He swept his eyes over her again: petit, cute nose, nice chest even under all those hides. They were of the greasy brown type, not classy dressing, but good for keeping warm.  
  
What he'd seen of this planet suggested a primitive war-based culture with a few modern technologies to ease things along. A nice puzzle for an anthropologist, but he wasn't one of them. And this Peri was enough of a puzzle herself. She seemed like the type that would flinch at even the shadow of violence — not the barbarian type. Sweet was the word that sprang to mind.  
  
 _Lynda with a Y_  
  
Now it was his turn to flinch. He shoved the thought aside, and erased the word sweet from his vocabulary.   
  
Back to his current situation. That was good. Live in the moment. Peri had her arms crossed over her chest now.It didn't fit together — Peri and these barbarians. She was married to one, and not just a barbarian, an important local ruler according to Peri.   
  
"How the hell did that happen?" he asked.  
  
She shifted uncomfortably. She wasn't used to crouching like this. He could tell. Her body was bred for chairs.   
  
"I don't remember it all," she said. Her arms tightened around her body.   
  
"You don't remember saying 'I do'?"  
  
"The Kropten's don't say 'I do', they,” she stopped short, “it wasn’t like I had a choice about it,” she muttered, “I was possessed most of the time.”   
  
The truth comes out. Jack bent down on one knee. He wasn’t used to crouching for extended periods either.  
  
" So it wasn't a marriage of consent? Then it isn't valid, and I can take you away," he drew out the moment, "back to Earth if you want."   
  
She looked like she was considering. He wondered what he'd do if she did accept. The ship didn't time jump to get here, and returning to Earth wouldn't go well for him. Particularly not with Mr. Wicks, his android goonies, and the Time Agency all looking for his neck. He turned his mind back to the present. That was his new motto right? The present?  
  
"You can't bring me home," Said Peri. A pause that practically shouted: "no one can." And set him wondering about her again — she was a puzzle.   
  
"And I wasn't possessed when I said 'I do.'"  
  
"I thought Kroptens don't say 'I do'"   
  
Yrcanos chose that moment to return. A bundle of firewood from the royal stock wrapped in his big bear arms. Jack felt King of the Kropten’s presence fill the room like a living thing. Yrcanos cheerfully dumped half the wood he was holding by the door and carried the rest to poke into the cottage's pit fireplace. A quick flick with a flint and steel, and sweet, crackling smoke expanded from the new flames to twist around the ceiling.   
  
"I didn't see any trees around," said Jack.  
  
"Imported from off-Kropten!" Yrcanos boomed, waving his arms vaguely. "You look less like death now. When I first saw you, I though the Ice Maiden must have kissed you to make lips that blue!"   
  
"Are these Ice Maiden's beautiful?" he asked. Jack decided opening a line of communication with his host would be a good way to gain his trust. Learning about the local culture could serve him well. Learning about local shags could only serve him better.   
  
"Pale and wondrous, they have drawn many men to death with their songs! They say that to sleep with a Maiden is worth the price of your damnation! I am immune for my dearest Peri of the Brown is more stunning than the finest of their kind!"   
  
"Mmmm…" said Jack, his mind conjuring images of sensual maidens.  
  
"For pity's sake it's just a legend," Peri snapped.  
  
Yrcanos looked affronted. Jack disappointed.  
  
"How did you survive out there anyway?" Peri asked, "It's not like you're dressed for it."   
  
Jack pulled at the material of his filched uniform. "I might be. It's amazing what a good thermo-polyester blend can do." It was the only explanation he could think of anyway.  
  
"Will you be staying in our house to serve your Queen!" Yrcanos boomed.  
  
Jack flinched. This man did not know about personal boundaries, or the meaning of the words "indoor voice".   
  
"Not long. You say your settlement has some technological amenities?" Jack asked.  
  
"The trappings of the fast world, yes! They are useful for work and trade and braving the Ice Maiden's breath, but the true life is spent under the sky, by the till and sword! Blood running in rivers! Did Peri tell you of our wedding battle and the braveness of her first kill? A cowardly bride of Silicas slit under her-" Yrcanos stated, but he cut off mid-sentence. Peri was hunching into herself. "Ah! Well she is modest!"  
  
With that topic over, the uneasy silence resumed. Yrcanos poked at the fire with his sword. Jack couldn't stop looking at Peri. She didn't look like she could hurt a fly. _But if she could that might explain-_  
  
"Tell me! Have you had many battles Captain Jarkness?" Yrcanos asked, cutting off his thought.   
  
"Call me Jack. And yes, I've had a few."  
  
"Good stories and good fights!"  
  
"Stories, yes." he wandered over his life, mostly dull military training, war, the death of a good friend, turning to crime, running, fighting, always fighting. The Gaming Station. "Sometimes I wonder if someone up there hates me, course I’ve been up there and…”  
  
He trailed off When did he start going all philosophical? He took a moment to realign himself before starting again:  
  
"King Yrcanos, if you would graciously lend me some parts I will repair my ship and leave your world with the promise to repay you. On my honour," Jack stated.   
  
"A good man of honour!” Ycranos declared. “In the morning I will lead you to me techies and they will discuss metal with you. But tonight you will bed with me and my Proud Flower."   
  
For once Jack, the flexible guy from the 51st century, who had danced with more animals than Noah brought on the ark, was stumped. The proud flower would be great if she wasn’t shooting him death looks, and the king…  
  
Jack took a deep breath. He was ready for anything, open to anything…  
  
“Tangled together we can thwart the Ice Maiden’s icy tricks!”  
  
 _Big, hairy, bearded guy who likes to kill things._ Jack rubbed his ribs. They were still bruised from the King’s earlier fireman carry. Jack made a decision that went against the grain of everything he stood for. He would sleep with anything.   
  
Except that.   
  
"It's not really necessary," Jack gritted out. He put his eyes to the floor, away from Peri. He really couldn’t believe he was doing this.  
  
"I insist!" Yrcanos boomed.  
  
And Jack wished the time Agency would swoop in and bring him back to prison. Or the Daleks would come to exterminate him. Or anything...


	11. Repairs

  
  
Two days later Peri, Yrcanos, Jack and the techie Alleecas were on a pair of ugrfas heading north. A generator bound by the necks of both beasts sent out a miniature force dome that protected them as they rode past a path of trampled snow; it was the route Yrcano's men had taken on their way home from battle. Peri rode with her husband, and Jack bothered the tight-lipped techie.   
  
The journey took the better part of the day, and by the time they reached the ship the moon was licking its way across the tundra sending shivers of light from the hard pack ground. The force dome protecting them doubled as a light-source as they reached the wreckage of Jack’s ship.   
The once cute round hull was dented from the crash, its sweet silver skin streaked black from its off-angle re-entry and contact with the force dome. Only a half moon of it showed about the ashy snow it had buried itself in.   
  
"You came in that?" Peri asked.  
  
"Hey!" Jack dismounted with a flourish. "Don't insult my little girl. Anyway, she's bigger on the inside."   
  
"Really?"  
  
Jack spun around in time to catch the end of Peri's double take.  
  
"No, not really."  
  
Jack furrowed his brow after replying.  
  
He kicked open the ship's hatch.   
  
"In here."  
  
He used the flashlight function of his compact laser deluxe. He had bummed some new batteries for it off of Yrcanos. Everything was tilted to a severe angle. His feet skidded on the floor, and he raised one hand to the bulkhead to steady himself. He heard a clamouring thump as Peri entered behind him.   
  
"Careful!" Jack snapped.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
She sounded genuine, albeit whiny, but he didn’t grace her with a reply. Next came the techie. She made no sound when entering, but Jack could sense the presence of another heartbeat. Funny that; he’d never been especially sensitive to that sort of thing before. Yrcanos stayed outside to watch the Urgfas, for which Jack was very grateful. Peri shuffled over to him, grabbing her way from seat to wall.   
  
"What's wrong with it?" Peri asked.  
  
"Burnt out power packs, the left jump link's been snapped off, the fuel tank has a leak, the main drive cables twisted, and its half buried in the snow," said Jack   
  
"Pretty bad then," said Peri.  
  
"I can get her going again. Hey, techie!" said Jack.  
Alleecas hadn't moved from the hatch. She had a look on her face that was near orgasmic.   
  
"This technology…" Alleecas started.  
  
"Yada, yada, I know, years in advance of your own. She's good ship, but she ain't half of some of the ones I've travelled in. Do you think you can help me with these repairs?"   
  
Alleecas nodded stepped up to her new duty. Cut out, and feeling useless, Peri sat in the pilot's chair and started spinning.  
  
"Something smells," Peri commented.  
  
"Yeah, well, I lost a bit of my lunch on the way down," replied Jack.  
  
Peri spotted the crusted pile of vomit and had to gulp back her own lunch. Then she noticed, caked beside it-   
  
"Is that blood?" asked Peri.  
  
"Would you mind your own business?" Jack threw back in reply.  
  
"Fine," said Peri.  
  
She gave the chair another good spin, lost her grip, and spilled onto the deck. From there gravity slid her into the burnt control panel. Jack swore, Alleecas glared, and Peri said sorry multiple times before clambering out of the ship. Just before leaving the hatch she discretely stuck her tongue at the pair's backs.   
  
Outside the tundra shimmered with light sent from the planet's wayward sun refracted downwards by a pair of glowing orange moons. This area was relatively devoid of rocks, and the sheets of flat white stretched to the horizon. In the distance she could see the flickering light of the settlement's force dome. Sighing, she tromped to where the urgfas had parked themselves in the snow.   
  
Yrcanos was boasting to his mount about legends and war.   
Peri ignored him and grabbed a skin of wine from the beast's saddlebag. It was only thinly alcoholic compared with the beer most of the Kroptens preferred. Childbrew, they called it. She could drink it without getting tipsy if she was careful not to drink too much.   
  
With the skin of liquid clung to her chest she cuddled into the saddle. The portable force field protected them from the worst of the deadly cold, but it wasn't enough to keep the temperature comfortable. She wondered who Jack was, really. For a moment she had hoped he might be the Doctor.  
  
Stupid.  
  
How could he be the Doctor? The Time Lord could change his face, and she had seen the TARDIS try on different forms. It could have been him. Except he wasn’t coming back. He had _abandoned her._  
  
Somewhere between the wine, the urgfa’s body heat, and the soothing rhythm of the animal's breathing, Peri fell asleep. She dreamed of African sunsets.   
  
She was wakened when the world stirred roughly beneath her. She grabbed fur with both hands to keep from falling off the ugrfa's rising back.   
  
"Hey!" she shouted.  
  
Jack grinned up at her from the ground.  
  
"We need to borrow your bed," he shouted.  
  
Peri blinked back sleep and saw that a pair of cables had been linked from her ugrfa's harness to the side of the crashed spaceship. Another blink and she saw the other ugrfa similarly lashed up beside her. Yrcanos was sitting on its back with a merry grin on his face.   
  
"Heave!" Jack shouted, followed by a boom from Peri's husband. The two great beasts started forward, their feet ploughing deep into the semi-frozen snow with the weight they were towing. The air was filled with crunches, and the sound of taught cables, and taught muscles. Peri could feel the power straining beneath her.   
  
With a sound between a pop and a crash the ship pulled from of the ice. Peri's mount stumbled forward, and then lurched back as it regained its balance. Peri wondered if it was possible to get whiplash from an ugrfa.   
  
"Got you," Jack purred at his ship before rushing back through the hatch. A moment later its hull started to glow. Dents flattened, and burn marks ran backwards to become pure shining metal. Peri shielded her eyes as the light got brighter obscuring the craft completely. Then, without any sign or sound to mark its departure, the light vanished leaving a healed spaceship. Jack popped out of the hatch like nothing had ever happened.   
  
Even Yrcanos was speechless.  
  
"Automated repair system," Jack said as if it were nothing, "standard issue on Agency ships, but I had to realign the circuits and get her free. I'll be off now. Thanks." He took a deep breath and looked at Peri. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me? My ship has some other tricks that are rather impressive."   
  
"Unless it can time travel I'm not interested."  
  
"Oh,” Jack said, sweeping his eyes over her again, “but it can."  
  
Everything was starting to become clear.


	12. Not Exactly Goodbye

  
She couldn't respond. Jack had his cocky half-open smile on again. Her husband was shouting something as per usual. The cold was settling through her furs to rest on her bones. She watched Jack’s face looking for something familiar. The hair framing it was so dark it made her want to cry. It suited him though.  
  
 _He had changed again, must’ve. Why did it matter what colour his hair was?. Why he didn't recognise her when they first met? Did it matter?_  
  
 _He had come back._   
  
Peri tried to speak, but it came out as a mute whimper.. She felt the last year fall away from her. A feeling of calm and complete peace fell over her. She tried again and the question came out correctly this time:   
"Doctor?"  
  
Jack didn't respond. Peri met his eyes and felt her self shatter. They were the same shade of crystal blue tinged with grief and experience, but those eyes belonged to a stranger. The Doctor's eyes held the universe. Jack's eyes held a single soul.   
  
She licked her chapped lips and nudged a tear out of the corner of her eye with a knuckle.   
  
"Do you still want to come with me?" Jack asked.  
  
Peri looked over her shoulder. Yrcanos and the techie had undone the ugrfa's tethers. It was time to go home. Except that wasn't home. The tundra sparkled in the moonlight, a sea of dreams and ice. But she wanted green. She wanted heat. This was an alien world, and it always would be.  
  
"To Earth?" she asked, well aware that her voice was quavering. But that didn't matter.   
  
Jack nodded.  
  
Peri sucked in her breath. _Home_   
  
"Can I say goodbye?" she asked.  
  
Jack nodded again.  
  
Peri turned and ran to her husband. When she reached him she buried her face and hands in his chest. The long fur on his overcoat smelled dusky. It was a cocktail aroma of beer and sweat, blood and dirt, and something indefinably royal. One big bear arm clapped around her back and she looked up at his surprisingly innocent face. Something hot slid down her face and she knew she must be crying.   
  
"Jack's offered to take me home," Peri told him as her voice once more quivered.  
  
Yrcano's face darkened for a moment, and Peri became afraid that he might refuse. Her husband wanted her. For some reason, beyond Peri's reckoning, he had been infatuated with her from their first meeting. He was a barbarian king and she was his Queen, and a foreigner. If he kept her by force would anyone care? If he challenged Jack which of the two men would win? Yrcanos could be gentle, and loving, and generous, but he could kill. He enjoyed killing. Peri could see concealed rage in his eyes as he looked over her head to where Jack slouched by his ship.   
  
"Is this want you wish?" he asked, for once not shouting.  
  
Peri winced at the harsh whisper.  
  
"I love you Yrcanos," and she realised she did, despite everything, despite the fact that she had married him out of necessity. She would miss him. "But I have a home. My Mom and my fa — Howard, probably think I'm dead, I-"   
  
She choked on her words and reformed them into a sentence her husband would accept.   
  
"It would be a dishonour to them for me to stay here when they are mourning. My mother lost my father already. I can't let her lose me too."   
  
Yrcanos stroked her hair with one hand while still cuddling her with the other. Then he released her. Peri gave him a half-smile. He gave her a firm nod.   
  
"I'll miss you," she whispered one last time.  
  
She walked slowly to Jack. If only she could stay and leave. If only she had more than one body, more than one life. She hated the Doctor.   
  
"Alleecas!" she heard her husband boom behind her. "Tether those ugrfas together so that two may be led by one! You will return to my village and tell them that I have succeeded my throne to Silicas none deserves it more!"   
  
Peri half turned. Her booted feet scrapped and crunched in the snow. Her husband was looking at her. Moonlight reflected off his smile. She had never seen him so happy.   
  
"My Queen! I have given up my throne and now I follow you to your kingdom! Noble Captain, take us forth!" Yrcanos boomed.  
  
Jack cringed.


End file.
